1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a liquid container and a recording device on which the liquid container is mounted.
2. Description of the Related Art
A liquid container such as an ink cartridge is mounted on a recording device such as an ink jet printer. Liquid is supplied from the mounted liquid container to a liquid ejection head included in the recording device. Such a recording device ejects the liquid from the liquid ejection head onto a recording medium, and hence performs recording of characters, images, etc.
The liquid (ink) stored in a liquid chamber of the liquid container is required to have a constant density in the liquid chamber; however, density unevenness of the liquid may occur. Particularly in case of liquid containing a pigment, the pigment may be likely precipitated. When the pigment is precipitated, a phenomenon occurs in which the density of the pigment is high at the lower (bottom surface) side and is low at the upper (upper surface) side in the liquid chamber. Herein, a case is considered in which, in a configuration of leading out the liquid from the bottom surface side of the liquid container, the liquid container is kept in a constant posture (in a state in which the bottom surface faces the lower side in the gravitational direction) for a long period. When the liquid is supplied from such a liquid container to a recording head, the liquid forming a layer with a high density of pigment particles is supplied first, and hence an image of a color with a high density is recorded. Also, a difference in recording density may appear between a recorded image in an early phase of use and a recorded image in a later phase of use of the liquid container. Such a phenomenon tends to be particularly noticeable in case of color recording that records a color image by using gradations of colors.
To address such a problem, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2005-7855 describes provision of a pipe extending from a liquid lead-out portion provided at the bottom surface side of a liquid chamber to the upper side in the gravitational direction of the liquid chamber. The pipe has a plurality of liquid inlet ports communicating with the inside of the liquid chamber respectively at a plurality of positions in the gravitational direction. Among these liquid inlet ports, the liquid inlet port located at the lower side in the gravitational direction is configured to have a high inflow resistance as compared with those of the other liquid inlet ports. With this configuration, the liquid can be taken by amounts corresponding to the inflow resistances respectively from a portion with a high density of pigment particles and a portion with a low density of pigment particles in the liquid chamber, and the blended liquid can be led out from the liquid container.